82. Willow #2
Noah’s back is still to me, but I can see his shoulders start to straighten as my father continues to laugh. His hands are bound behind his back, and bruises and cuts are covering his body. His clothes are dingy and covered in blood and whatever other disgusting matter comes out of him.
I need to get out of here. I can’t…This can’t be real.
I take a slow step back trying to sink into the shadows once more. My damp socks make a soft squish noise as I step into a puddle. My father’s glare turns back to Noah for a split second before his eyes lock with mine.
“Hello, daughter.”
My fingers grip onto the brick wall, nails digging into the crumbling mortar. I can feel the sting of pain as my nails pull back. My entire body is shaking. I think I’m going to be sick.
Noah turns, finally facing me. His muscles are corded and flexed. The tension in his jaw is evident from the veins in his neck. Those dark irises that I love are nearly pitch black down here. He looks crazed…like a monster. When he looks at me though, everything seems to calm.
His shoulders lower and his eyes go wide as he stares at me.
“Willow…” he starts, but I quickly cut him off.
“What is this, Noah? And I want the truth. Now,” I snap, some minuscule drop of strength still lingering in my voice when really I want to crumble into a heap on this floor.
He glances back at my father, who’s merely sitting there, bound to the chair, watching this play out like a reality TV show right in front of him. He’s getting sick pleasure out of this, I can tell. How long has he been down here?
Noah hesitantly looks back at me. I can feel the pain radiating off of him. I can see it in his eyes. He wasn’t ready to tell me yet, but he wanted to. He said he would always protect me, that he would never hurt me.
He takes a step closer reaching out his hand, and I can’t help my body’s involuntary response as I take a step back. He stops, frozen in place with his hand outstretched toward me.
“Please, Little Rabbit. Just let me explain,” he begs.
My mind is screaming to run, but my heart is screaming to stay. To trust him.
“Little Rabbit?” my father cackles from behind him. “Such a fitting name for such a pathetic little creature. Have you missed me, Willow? Have you missed your daddy all these years?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Noah shouts, and my body recoils putting me another step further from him. “Don’t fucking speak to her.”
“I’ve missed you, Willow. I searched for you, you know, but they kept you hidden from me…Do you remember that night, baby?” his voice slithers across the room wrapping around my throat and pulling me closer.
“Stop,” I whimper, but my voice barely makes a sound.
“Do you remember stabbing me in the fucking leg? Do you remember what you did?”
“No. This isn’t real…” I whisper as the tears begin to fall and the memory comes flooding back again.
Over and over, I’ve had to relive this in my nightmares, but now the monster is here, right in front of me.
“Do you remember the sounds as I killed her? I thought I killed you, too. I thought the knife went straight through her and into you.”
“Stop it!” Noah lunges at him punching him across the face.
One of the last remaining teeth in his rotted mouth flies out and bounces across the floor, but his laughter doesn’t end.
“Do you remember the sound of my knife, the knife you stabbed me with? It’s all because of you, Willow. I only had that knife because. Of. You!” he annunciates those last words, punching them into my soul.
“No.”
“Yes, Willow. If you had just been a good girl and gone upstairs like you always did, none of that would have happened.”
“Stop it,” I cry out as I sink to the floor and cover my ears.
Another sickening sound resonates through the room as Noah punches him again, but he won’t stop taunting me.
“It’s your fault, Willow. You just had to grab that knife…You just had to try and save her, didn’t you?”
“You wouldn’t stop. All you did was hurt her…Hurt us. Why?” I scream the last word.
Tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision as I watch Noah’s hands tighten around my father’s throat.
“Noah, stop. Wait,” I shout, but it’s like he doesn’t hear me.
I run to him and grab his arm. The feeling of my damp hands covered in dirt and grime from the floor seems to make him feel me.
“Wait, please. I need to know why,” I plead with him, staring into his eyes.
His fingers release slightly letting the monster in the chair gasp for breath.
“Why?” he chokes out. “You want to know why I beat you?”
“No. I want to know why you killed her. What happened that night?” I demand as the tears continue to fall.
“I told you, you handed me the…”
“No! What made you snap?” I scream, cutting him off.
He tilts his head and smiles at me. The corner of his eye is twitching as his lips curl.
“Your mother wanted to take you away from me. She had the fucking car packed and everything. But you forgot something, didn’t you, Willow?” he sneers.
Mr. Snuggles…
“My rabbit.”
“Bingo. I heard her searching in your room for that fucking thing. She was cussing up a storm thinking I was still passed out in bed. When I walked downstairs and saw the disgusting thing on the ground next to the bench, I noticed you sitting in that car.”
My mind drifts to that night again, blurring the lines between the past and present. I remember his silhouette in that doorway. The small hallway light illuminating him from behind casting his dark, ominous shadow across the lawn. The little shadow of my rabbit being dangling by his ripped ear.
“You just wouldn’t listen. I told you to get into the house. Bad girls who don’t listen get punished,” he repeats the words that have lingered at the edges of my mind for years. Every time someone was upset with me, I could hear him in my mind.
“Why did you kill her? You hurt us both so much, but you killed her that night.”
“I told you, Willow. You gave me the knife.”
Noah is pacing, letting me interrogate my father. I can tell he wants to step in and shield me from this, to protect me, but this needs to happen.
“Tell her the truth, James,” Noah finally says. “Tell her what you told me about that night.”
Noah steps behind me placing his hands on my shoulders. My father watches Noah with disgust as his grip tightens, helping ground me to this reality.
“Tell. Her,” he growls.
“Your mother was a cheating, lying whore. She told me you weren’t my daughter.”
“What?”
I try to take a step back, but Noah is there holding me in place.
“I lost it. She was going to take you away from me and then she tells me you’re not mine. Years…For fucking years I took care of you two, and for what? For her to fucking scurry away in the middle of the night without even as much as a goodbye? I don’t fucking think so.”
“If you’re not my father, then who…”
“My brother. She said Johnny was your father. I lost it. All I could see was red as I tightened my grip around her throat, but then you had to try and be a hero. You stupid fucking child.”
This is all too much. This monster might not be my father.
My real father might already be dead. We were almost free that night, but he’s right, it’s all my fault.
If I hadn’t dropped that fucking rabbit.
If I hadn’t grabbed the knife. If I had just been a good girl and gone upstairs, none of that would have happened.
“Willow?” Noah whispers in my ear. “Breathe, baby. I need you to breathe.”
A gulp of the stagnant air has me choking and gagging on the stench of it all.
“No,” I scream as I push away from them both.
“It’s true, Willow. Your mother is dead because of you,” he cackles as I take another step back, pressing myself against the wall.
My chest feels like it’s caving in.
Why did I come down here?
Why?
“Willow, look at me,” Noah says softly as my eyes focus and find him standing right in front of me.
“Noah, I…Why? Why is he here? How long has he been here?”
“Four years. I’ve been down in this shit-hole for four fucking years all because of you, Willow. Everything is because of you, don’t you see that, you stupid girl?” he shouts.
Noah screams as he rushes towards the monster.
“I’m the one who hunted you down. I’m the one who dragged you here. I’m the one who’s tortured and beaten you for four years, not her. Don’t you dare blame her for this.”
“But it is because of her. You always wanted to be the one to save her, even back then.”
He spits at Noah before another crack echoes as his fist connects with the monster’s jaw.
“Willow, end him. Grab that knife off the table and fucking end him. Kill the monster that’s haunted you for years, Little Rabbit,” Noah shouts to me as he holds James in place gripping him by his hair.
“She’s too fucking weak. Aren’t you, Little Rabbit?” he mocks me.
“No, she’s not. She’s strong. You’re strong, Willow. Kill him,” Noah demands.
“I…I can’t,” I stutter.
“You can. I know you can, Little Rabbit. You know why? Because you’re one of the strongest people I fucking know.”
“I can’t…”
“Look. At. Me!” Noah shouts, snapping my focus only to him.
“You can. I’m right here. I told you, I’ll always be there next to you.
I lit the flame so you could burn down that house.
Now I’m handing you the knife to kill the monster who ruined your childhood.
Take it, Willow. End him, and this is all over. ”